In the food industry it is of increasing importance to be able to provide portions of meat which have substantially identical weights per portion and substantially identical shapes and hence substantially the same thicknesses and cross sections. Portions of meat which are thus practically identical enable automatic cooking and the simultaneous cooking of many pieces of meat. It also enables simplified packaging of cooked and uncooked meat products.
The uniformity of the portions, especially in the case of finished or fully cooked products enables the presentation of the portions on a plate to have an esthetic appearance and in general the shaping of meat products which can originally be obtained with a variety of configurations, enables the overall appearance of the processed meat to be greatly improved.
It is known to roll pieces of meat in a nonfrozen state and then to cut up the rolled product, especially by a water jet cutter, to portion the meat and impart a desired shape to the portions.
It is also known to place pieces of meat, usually by vacuum, into a trough-shaped form and to cut off those parts of the meat which project horizontally beyond the form and thereby shape individual portions of meat. Both of these processes, however, while they do impart a given shape to the meat, are incapable of satisfactorily providing identical-shape, shape-stable and equal height and weight end products. In addition, in processes which involve the rolling of pieces of meat, it is found that the meat is excessively stressed and a tearing of the flesh can occur.
It is also known to shape pieces of meat in a frozen state in a press using a press ram which compresses the meat until a particular pressure is obtained.
The result is that certain portions of the meat may have different thicknesses or heights and different dimensions so that the portions which are thus formed by compression to equal pressures frequently are not of equal weight.
In another process a piece of meat can be shaped in its frozen state by compression with a press ram in a trough-shaped mold to a defined height, to yield a piece of meat with a defined weight but different shape. A problem with this system, however, is that excess material from a starting piece of meat of higher weight than the portion to be made, is pressed outwardly in an uncontrolled manner and frequently remains as an undesired projection on the reshaped product.